One Week Early

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During Saturday night’s Federated Auto Parts 400, 2012 Sprint Cup Champion Brad Keselowski put on a display of rather impressive driving. While maybe not producing the greatest race action, as a BK fan, it doesn’t get much better.

After setting his fourth Coors Light Pole of the year, and 11th front row start on Friday, it looked like that would be a great start to the race weekend. From the drop of the green flag, Keselowski was able to maintain the lead until Lap 43. But when a caution flew just eight laps later, I started to notice something else.

Not only did the driver himself want to prove he was Championship worthy – the entire No.2 Pit Crew exclaimed they want – and deserve the trophy just as much.

Not only did the driver himself want to prove he was Championship worthy – the entire No.2 Pit Crew exclaimed they want – and deserve the trophy just as much. In the entire 400 lap event, the Blanco Deuce made it on to pit road a total of five times. Two of those times, the machine entered from the second position, and first the other three times. It was truly impressive to see the car spit out of the pits in P1 every single time! It’s hard to believe that just a few short months ago everyone at Penske was looking for answers with BK’s pit crew, but after just a few changes we couldn’t ask for anything better.

The performance from Brad was absolutely dominating. As much as I enjoy watching that, I just had to wish that run could have been saved for next week at Chicagoland. Having a win in the first round solidifies your spot for the second round, but who’s to say he can’t pull that off too? With a race as great as Richmond, we could only hope to see those performances week in and week out.

Looking back on Brad’s last utter domination of the Sprint Cup field at Kentucky, the weekend looked pretty similar. Both Kentucky and Richmond started off on the Pole, and both races ended up with BK in the lead for a majority of the race. But there was more to the familiarness than just that – it was the same chassis! The Team Penske chassis No.PRS-904 had surely had it’s proper payout from the team, as it has two races under it’s belt – each of those resulting in victories. I wonder how hard it would be for the crew to prepare that car for the next ten weeks?